Charles Ellicott Commentary Hebrews 3:5

"And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken;" — Hebrews 3:5 (ASV)

As a servant.—What was previously implied is now clearly expressed. Hebrews 3:3 associated Moses with the house, Jesus with Him who built it; the nature of this relation is stated in this verse and the next. Moses was “in God’s house”; however exalted his position, he was in the house as a servant. The Greek word used here does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament but is taken from the Septuagint version of Numbers 12:7. There is nothing special about the Hebrew word in that passage, but the translators seem to have felt that “bond-servant” was less suitable in such a context than “attendant” or “minister.”

The object of his service was that he might bear “testimony of the things that should afterward be spoken.” Are we to understand by these the divine commands that would from time to time be given to Moses? If so, then the statement “Moses was faithful” must be regarded as a pure quotation, equivalent to “Moses was at that time declared faithful.”

This does not seem probable. If, however, the words of Numbers 12:7 are taken as descriptive of the whole life of Moses, his “witness” must relate to the things spoken “in these last days”; of these, by his writings, his acts, his life, Moses bore constant witness. (Hebrews 8:5; Hebrews 9:19; Hebrews 11:26; John 5:46, and other passages.) The latter interpretation is confirmed by Hebrews 3:6, in which the name given to our Lord is not Jesus, as in Hebrews 3:1, but Christ.